Released in the fall of 1974, When the Eagle Flies was Traffic's swan song. Since the band's humble beginnings, Steve Winwood had taken Traffic's music through a half-dozen radical permutations, leading with evolutionary zeal to the spacey and wide-open frontiers of The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys and Shoot Out at the Fantasy Factory. By '73's On the Road, Traffic had become a seven-member band, ministering R&B, jazz and rock 'n' roll to sold-out audiences around the world.

"Well, the changes were, you know changes. We all went through them. The group now, today . . . well, it's more loose and more . . . evasive. Difficult to put a finger on. The vagueness that we have is often missed, you know. But we all benefited from doing those things. We all played with different people, and we learned. Before, in Traffic, there was almost this jealousy thing if we played with someone else. That doesn't exist anymore, you know, that's just bullshit."